Check Out Jennifer Lapidus’s Story

OCTOBER 13, 2022

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Lapidus.

Hi Jennifer, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started as a baker in the 1990s. I was doing naturally-leavened (sourdough) breads in a wood-fired oven, and milling my whole grain flours in-house. Back then, there were very few of us doing this sort of baking. I was very interested in baking without commercial baking yeast– or understanding what came before ‘”rapid rise- yeast” and I discovered a Flemish style of natural leavening called desem which required fresh whole grain flour- hence the milling in-house. And then in 2008, along with the housing bubble, there was a rush on commodities and the price of wheat rose significantly — as much as 130%. By that time, I was part of a vibrant baking community in Western NC and all of us bakers not only felt this price increase in our bottom line but we also had this realization that we were all sorely disconnected from our most essential ingredient– flour. None of us were connected with farmers that grew the grain that became our flour– and all of this grain was being grown at least 1000 miles from our bakeries. Also, in 2008, the first-ever bread-wheat varieties of wheat (hard wheat) that had been bred to be grown in the southern United States were released from the USDA- ARS (these are NOT GMO– just traditional breeding practices). Traditionally soft wheat or pastry wheat is grown in the South- think biscuits and pie; hard wheat or bread wheat do not do as well in the heat and humidity of our region, but a public wheat breeding program based in Raleigh, NC began in 2002, and by 2008, two varieties were released. I learned about this and felt that someone needed to launch a mill to connect the farmer, millers, and bakers in the South. It was a no-brainer that we would stone-mill our flour, as stone-milled flour is leagues apart from industrial roller-milled flour (the majority of flour produced today) in terms of flavor and nutrients. And so, after a few years of organizing and planning, working initially under the auspices of the non-profit Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, and through a combination of grant funding, crowdfunding, Slow Money loans, and empathetic investors, by 2012, Carolina Ground was born. Today we sell to bakeries as far south as Miami and north to DC, and to individuals nationwide through our online store. In November of 2021, we moved from a 1700 sq ft windowless space in Asheville into our own building in Hendersonville, NC — with huge windows and a 20 ft ceiling. This space also enables us to finally interact with our immediate community, and we’ve begun to host monthly pop-up markets with bakeries using our flour selling baked goods alongside us selling flour and books (in April 2021 my book, Southern Ground was released (TenSpeedPress) — which tells our story but also offers recipes providing the tools for the home baker to dive into the stone ground, regional flour).

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Connecting the farmer, miller, and baker– an age-old tradition– seems so simple, as simple as a loaf of sourdough bread- simple in the ingredients but incredibly complicated when you dig below the surface. Grains have been the last to the table for the local foods movement for a reason. Grain requires heavy, costly equipment for cultivation, harvest, storage, and cleaning. Most of the grain grown in the South (or NC, where we are located) is grown as a winter rotation crop and is usually marketed for feed, or if it does end up at a mill, these are large (huge) turnkey operations — that do their own cleaning, sorting, blending, lab testing, etc. We were starting from scratch and trying to do this small (really micro, compared to the average size mill in this country that processes hundreds of thousands of pounds of grain a day)– so that was one big hurdle. We found a grain cleaner who was cleaning farmers’ grain so they could save their seed to re-plant– one guy in the entire state of NC, as we had to educate him on food grade cleaning (while we were also educating ourselves); we found growers –large-scale organic growers — that were already growing soft wheat and ask them to try these new varieties of hard wheat; we brought them bread made with their wheat – we began to build relationships. We also had the baker end early on– getting bakers to be willing to work with flour that may not be as straightforward as what they were used to — helping them become better bakers by using their skills to navigate these challenges. The grain quality has improved considerably over the years and the bakers embrace the flour for its flavor.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I started out with this very altruistic vision of connecting the farmer, miller, and baker in the South but as the business has grown, it has very much become an entrepreneurial enterprise. Our move into our own building in November 2021 was motivated not only by our need for more room but also to create a workspace environment that was life-giving; I wanted this to be an inspiring place to work. I upgraded our conveying equipment so the physicality of the job was not as demanding, and added a second mill . All of this is not so much to increase our production but to become more efficient while producing high-quality flour. We are both industry and craft and our teams seem to love the work and the space. I am super proud of this. Our pop-up markets are new but very exciting (we’ve done 3 so far and our next one is on Sunday, Oct 23). The pop-up markets are community-building events — people come out and hang out- it literally feels like we are throwing a party once a month.. super fun. Finally, I am also a writer and welcomed the opportunity to tell our story through Southern Ground– to share my skills as both baker and miller and to share recipes from bakeries that we work with throughout the southeast (and my own recipes to boot). So I am, and this business is multi-faceted.

Who else deserves credit in your story?
Roland McReynolds, the Executive Director of the non-profit Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA) was instrumental in recognizing the value of my idea — that this was good for the grower and baker in the South– and through a grant-funded position, enabled me to lay the groundwork for what would become Carolina Ground. Other collaborators — cooperative extension agents, wheat breeders, agronomists– were all part of legitimizing this idea. Our handful of investors not only offered us capital, but also encouragement and guidance. And finally, the most important player in all of this, hands down, has been the baker. We would not be here without the bakers’ willingness to not only work with regional flour, but embrace this flour and tell the story to their customers — all of us together rebuilding a more sustainable food system in the South.

Contact Info:

Website: carolinaground.com
Instagram: CarolinaGround
Facebook: Carolina Ground, L3C

Image Credits
Rinne Allen

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SouthCarolinaVoyager: Check Out Jennifer Lapidus’s Story

Check Out Jennifer Lapidus’s Story